Toshiba External Hard Disk Not Recognized/Detected by PC

"My computer stops recognizing my Toshiba external hard disk since it shut down due to power off when I was writing data on the external disk. When I restart the computer, the external hard disk is not showing up in My Computer. I can still find it shown as unknown device under Disk Management, but I cannot open it. Please tell me how to get deleted files back from USB hard drive when it cannot be recognized or detected by computer?"

"My 500GB Toshiba external hard disk cannot be recognized by my PC that runs Windows 7 operating system. It could be recognized several days ago, but I cannot find the drive letter of the Toshiba external hard disk when I connect it to my PC. The external hard disk cannot be detected under Disk Management, either. How can I restore the files stored on the external hard disk?"

Restore Data from Unrecognized External USB HDD

Since PC cannot recognize the external hard disk normally, you need to look for a way to access the files stored on the external disk. iCare Data recovery software is specialized data recovery, with which you can search for data on an unrecognized external hard disk and then extract the found files from the external disk. The data recovery software is compatible with all brands of external hard disk such as Western Digital, Seagate, Maxtor, Toshiba, Samsung, Adata, Hitachi, and more. The data recovery software allows you to restore data from external hard disk even if the external cannot be detected under Disk Management.

Steps to Recover Data off Unrecognized External Hard Disk

Step2. Choose the device and then the software will scan for lost files. You need to wait when the software is scanning.

Step3. You can preview the files after scanning. Then, select the files you need and recover them.

PC Was Unable to Recognize Toshiba External Hard Disk

External device like external hard disk is widely used by Windows PC users to store or backup data. Usually, Windows operating system can recognize an external hard disk automatically when you plug it to your computer. However sometimes, Windows will fail to recognize your external hard disk, which will lead you unable to write any file to the external disk or read any data from the disk. When PC cannot recognize your external hard disk, the external disk will not show up in "My Computer" when you connect it to your computer.

Check Reasons Why External Hard Disk Cannot Be Recognized

Several reasons can lead an external hard disk to be unrecognized by PC, so it is necessary to make it clear the reasons why your external hard disk is not recognized by Windows. Usually, some possible reasons might be that there is hardware issue with the USB port of you computer or there is something wrong with your external hard disk or the computer.
First of all, you can unplug the external hard disk and connect it to another USB port or another computer to see if the external disk can be recognized normally.
If the external hard disk still cannot be recognized by PC, probably the external hard disk is dead or corrupted. You can check if it can be detected under Disk Management. If the external hard disk can be detected under Disk Management, you can restore data from the external hard disk with data recovery software and then fix the error under Disk Management.
Usually, external hard disk might be dead or corrupted due to virus infection, bad sectors, improper operation on the external disk and more other reasons. Therefore, you should protect your external hard disk from suffering any virus and always unplug your external hard disk from your computer safely.

You may meet the similar problem on a USB flash drive. When you insert it to your computer, Windows system was unable to recognize the USB drive. Or sometimes, the flash drive can be detected by PC, but it prevents you from accessing any data on the drive by saying message like flash drive is not formatted. No matter your USB flash drive can be recognized or not, you can run the iCare Data Recovery to recover data as long as the USB is not physically damaged.